A guide book for common fossils of terrestrial animals found in the State of Florida

The Amistad National Recreation Area Paleontology Survey includes information regarding the scope and significance of the fossil record within Amistad National Recreation Area as well as paleontological resource management recommendations.

A guide book of common mollusk fossils found in the State of Florida

Examining and interpreting recent spectacular fossil discoveries in China, paleontologists have arrived at a prevailing view: there is now incontrovertible evidence that birds represent the last living dinosaur. But is this conclusion beyond dispute? In this book, evolutionary biologist Alan Feduccia provides the most comprehensive discussion yet of the avian and associated evidence found in China, then exposes the massive, unfounded speculation that has accompanied these discoveries and been published in the pages of prestigious scientific journals. Advocates of the current orthodoxy on bird origins have ignored contrary data, misinterpreted fossils, and used faulty reasoning, the author argues. He considers why and how the debate has become so polemical and makes a plea to refocus the discussion by "breaking away from methodological straitjackets and viewing the world of origins anew." Drawing on a lifetime of study, he offers his own current understanding of the origin of birds and avian flight.

A pictorial guide to common fossils that are found in Florida at a variety of locations around the state.

This is the official guide to Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' sculptures at Crystal Palace, Sydenham, including dinosaurs and other monsters. Owen's guide offers technical descriptions of their biology and geology.

This book examines how human interactions with animals, in particular now extinct cave bears (Ursus spelaeu), affected the social lives of prehistoric hunter-gatherers (hominins - Neanderthals and AMH) living in Central Europe (Moravia and Silesia/Eastern Czech Republic) during OIS3 (c. 60,000-24,000 Cal. BP). The author adopts a multidisciplinary approach, using published literature, animal remains, digital data, and GIS, together with odontometric and tooth-wear analyses, and spatial reconstruction techniques to identify potential interactions between hominins and cave bears. New theoretical concepts are used to interpret the results and as a means for making statements about the role that cave bears, and potential interactions with cave bears, played in the social lives of hominins.

An enthralling scientific and cultural exploration of the Ice Age-from the author of How the Canyon Became Grand From a remarkable father-daughter team comes a dramatic synthesis of science and environmental history-an exploration of the geologic time scale and evolution twinned with the story of how, eventually, we have come to understand our own past. The Pleistocene is the epoch of geologic time closest to our own. The Last Lost World is an inquiry into the conditions that made it, the themes that define it, and the creature that emerged dominant from it. At the same time, it tells the story of how we came to discover and understand this crucial period in the Earth's history and what meanings it has for today.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is the location of one of the best-known terrestrial records for the late Cretaceous. Prior fieldwork confirmed the richness of the area, but a major effort begun in the new century has documented over 2,000 new vertebrate fossil sites, provided new radiometric dates, and identified five new genera of ceratopsids, two new species of hadrosaur, a probable new genus of hypsilophodontid, new pachycephalosaurs and ankylosaurs, several kinds of theropods (including a new genus of oviraptor and a new tyrannosaur), plus the most complete specimen of a Late Cretaceous therizinosaur ever collected from North America, and much more. The research documented in this book is rewriting our understanding of Late Cretaceous paleobiogeography and dinosaur phyletics. At the Top of the Grand Staircase: The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah is a major stepping stone toward a total synthesis of the ecology and evolution of the Late Cretaceous ecosystems of western North America.

Cold-water corals occur worldwide from high latitudes to tropical areas, in various settings from the deep-sea to shallow marine environments near the coast. The topic of this thesis is the establishment and extension of knowledge about environmental conditions controlling cold-water coral (CWC) mound development. From literature it is known that glacial-interglacial cycles drive development and geographic distribution of CWC mounds on a large scale. On the other hand, knowledge about the influence of small scale climatic and oceanographic changes during the Holocene is scarce. Thus, this thesis focuses on the investigation of the limited Holocene climatic and oceanographic changes and their effect on the process of mound genesis. For this purpose, a Holocene CWC mound setting in a sound in the Altafjord in northern Norway (70 N) -- the Stjernsund -- was chosen and the local benthic ecosystem was extensively analysed. Von den sub-arktischen hohen Breiten bis in warme tropische Zonen besiedeln Kaltwasserkorallen unseren Planeten. Sie haben sich verschiedenste Lebensraume erschlossen --- Von der Tiefsee bis zu marinen Flachwassergebieten an der Kuste kann ihr Vorkommen beobachtet werden. Sie bilden faszinierende Okosysteme die erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten intensiver erforscht wurden. Diese Arbeit widmet sich der tieferen Erforschung dieser Lebensraume. Im Fokus stehen dabei Umweltbedingungen, die die Entwicklung der Kaltwasserkorallenvorkommen kontrollieren. Umfangreiche fruhere Untersuchungen haben bereits gezeigt, dass ihr Wachstum, als auch ihre geographische Verbreitung im Wesentlichen von Glazial-Interglazial-Zyklen gesteuert werden. Die kurzzeitlichen klimatischen und ozeanographischen Steuerungsfaktoren sind im Vergleich dazu jedoch nahezu unbekannt. Daher konzentriert sich diese Arbeit auf die Erforschung von kurzeitigen klimatischen und ozeanographischen Veranderungen, die insbesondere im Holozan zu beobachten sind, sowie deren mogliche Auswirkungen auf

In the follow up to Darwin's Lost World, Martin Brasier introduces the quest for the missing history of life and the cell. Through a series of journeys it emerges that the modern plant cell is one of the most deeply puzzling and unlikely steps in the whole history of life. Decoding this puzzle is a great adventure that has mainly taken place over the last half century. Brasier puts the big questions into context through lively descriptions of his explorations around the world, from the Caribbean Sea and the Egyptian pyramids, to the shores of the great lakes in Canada, and to the reefs and deserts of Australia. Covering the period from 1 to 2 billion years ago - a period he once dubbed 'the boring billion' - he demonstrates how it in fact involved great evolutionary potential with the formation of the complex (eukaryotic) cell. Without this cell there would be nothing on Earth today except bacteria, and the formation of this cell was a fundamental turning point in the history of life on Earth. Weaving together several threads, Brasier emphasizes the importance of single-celled forms to marine ecosystems; symbiosis and coral reefs; and the architecture and beauty of single-celled Foraminifera and what they tell us about evolution. From a master storyteller comes a vivid description of the earliest biological forms and a set of fascinating tales of travels and research.

Over the past 25 years, a stream of fossil and artifact discoveries in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia has produced the longest single record of human ancestors in the world. Many of the fossils found in this region are the missing links leading to modern humans. This book chronicles the exploration of this unique desert area, focusing especially on the 1970s when the valley was mapped and many fossils and archeological sites were discovered. The author gives his personal account of the 25 years he spent researching the region.
As co-founder of the team that discovered Lucy, Jon Kalb has first-hand knowledge of the research that was involved in the findings of this region and of the intense rivalry that has accompanied those findings. He discusses the political drama of Ethiopia and the effects this chaos had on the Afar. This book covers the scientific discoveries of the area, the author's own explorations and findings, and the political struggles involved with these discoveries.

From one of the world's leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of "Trilobite , Life: A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth" and "Dry Storeroom No. 1 "comes a fascinating chronicle of life's history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, throughout time. Evolution, it seems, has not completely obliterated its tracks as more advanced organisms have evolved; the history of life on earth is far older--and odder--than many of us realize.
Scattered across the globe, these remarkable plants and animals continue to mark seminal events in geological time. From a moonlit beach in Delaware, where the hardy horseshoe crab shuffles its way to a frenzy of mass mating just as it did 450 million years ago, to the dense rainforests of New Zealand, where the elusive, unprepossessing velvet worm has burrowed deep into rotting timber since before the breakup of the ancient supercontinent, to a stretch of Australian coastline with stromatolite formations that bear witness to the Precambrian dawn, the existence of these survivors offers us a tantalizing glimpse of pivotal points in evolutionary history. These are not "living fossils" but rather a handful of tenacious creatures of days long gone.
Written in buoyant, sparkling prose, "Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms" is a marvelously captivating exploration of the world's old-timers combining the very best of science writing with an explorer's sense of adventure and wonder.

The belief that some dinosaurs were so gigantic that they couldn't exist with today's gravity is a topic frequently discussed on internet websites. The opinion posted the most is that the Earth's mass must have changed significantly resulting in an alteration of surface gravity or that the Earth somehow expanded. Neither of these opinions have scientific support. The theory explained in this book, the GTME, does have that support.
Readers familiar with basic rotational physics understand that when there is a redistribution of mass within a rotating symmetrical object, like the Earth, there are two laws of physics that must be obeyed: the conservation of (1) rotational kinetic energy and (2) angular momentum. When the Earth's continents coalesced to form Pangea, their center of mass shifted south of the equator, an action which would have reduced (1) and (2). Something had to offset the above continental movement in order to conserve the two quantities described. That something was either the shifting of the Earth's core elements (inner/outer cores and densest lower mantle) away from Pangea or the increase in rotational velocity of the Earth (i.e., shortening of the day). The latter has not been detected during Pangea's existence.
Considerable circumstantial evidence supports the GTME. The most obvious is the existence of the largest dinosaurs, the sauropods. As Pangea broke apart and surface gravity increased the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs, sea-going reptiles, ammonites, pterosaurs, etc., occurred. Core element movement is supported by the massive flood basalt volcanism of the Mesozoic and the two superchrons, the periods when magnetic pole reversal didn't occur.
The most powerful support for the GTME comes from the science of paleomagnetism. Paleomagnetists are split between support of the Pangea A vs. Pangea B models. Relying on the magnetic Geocentric Axial Dipole (GAD) model to reconstruct continental positions of Pangea they encountered a roadblock; the continents appeared to overlap. The GTME solves this problem because the shifting of the core elements from the Earth's geocenter mandates a non-GAD model. A recent study hypothesizes that geomagnetic pole reversals are directly linked to continental plate distribution; a concept already posited by the GTME As explained in this book, many if not most of the mass extinctions were the result of changes in the Earth's surface gravity due to core element movement resulting from continental tectonic plate movement.

THIS 28 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Science and Hebrew Tradition Essays, by Thomas H. Huxley. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766137848.

Described as 'a writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and other self-educated seers' by the "San Francisco Chronicle", David Rains Wallace turns his attention in this new book to another distinctive corner of California - its desert, the driest and hottest environment in North America. Drawing from his frequent forays to Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Kelso Dunes, and other locales, Wallace illuminates the desert's intriguing flora and fauna as he explores a controversial, unresolved scientific debate about the origin and evolution of its unusual ecosystems. Eminent scientists and scholars appear throughout these pages, including maverick paleobiologist Daniel Axelrod, botanist Ledyard Stebbins, and naturalists Edmund Jaeger and Joseph Wood Krutch. Weaving together ecology, geology, natural history, and mythology in his characteristically eloquent voice, Wallace reveals that there is more to this starkly beautiful landscape than meets the eye.

Shawnee legend tells of a herd of huge bison rampaging through the Ohio Valley, laying waste to all in their path. To protect the tribe, a deity slew these great beasts with lightning bolts, finally chasing the last giant buffalo into exile across the Wabash River, never to trouble the Shawnee again. The source of this legend was a peculiar salt lick in present-day northern Kentucky, where giant fossilized skeletons had for centuries lain undisturbed by the Shawnee and other natives of the region. In 1739, the first Europeans encountered this fossil site, which eventually came to be known as Big Bone Lick. The site drew the attention of all who heard of it, including George Washington, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and especially Thomas Jefferson. The giant bones immediately cast many scientific and philosophical assumptions of the day into doubt, and they eventually gave rise to the study of fossils for biological and historical purposes. Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that gave the world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian species, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has played many roles: nutrient source, hallowed ground, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of archaeological and paleontological wonders. Natural historian Stanley Hedeen presents a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological formation forward, explaining why the site attracted animals, regional tribespeople, European explorers and scientists, and eventually American pioneers and presidents. Big Bone Lick is the history of both a place and a scientific discipline: it explores the infancy and adolescence of paleontology from its humble and sometimes humorous beginnings. Hedeen combines elements of history, geology, politics, and biology to make Big Bone Lick a valuable historical resource as well as the compelling tale of how a collection of fossilized bones captivated a young nation.

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years. A secret until now, the fossil - Ida to theresearchers who have painstakingly verified her provenance - is the most complete primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what we've assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled - so much of what we understand about evolution comes from partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida's fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting skin shadow to her stomach contents. And, remarkably, knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw the light of day. With exclusive access to the first scientiststo study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. A magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story followed her discovery, and The Link offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins. At the same time, it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about primate evolution and, ultimately, our own.

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Maniraptora includes the first known bird, Archaeopteryx, the small, four-winged, feathered glider, Microraptor, and the terrestrial runner Bambiraptor. All are considered important links in the origin of flight and a subsequent transition to terrestriality. In cladistic classifications, dromaeosaurid "dinosaurs" were only considered terrestrial cursors. The discovery of a gliding stage within the dromaeosaurs confounds the currently suggested evolutionary framework and lacks predictability for origin of flight scenarios. Paleoclimate was a significant factor for evolution of dinosaur-like birds and birdlike dinosaurs during the Mesozoic. This time is characterized by faunal and floral changes reflecting the cooling trend at end of the Cretaceous. The environment opened up making it difficult for poor fliers and gliders as forested areas became less dense. Secondarily flightless terrestrial forms and birds with full flight capabilities survived best in these new environments. Eventually, birds of modern aspect probably replaced the primitive maniraptorans since they were more efficient fliers and had evolved higher metabolic rates suitable for the cooler climate.

When dinosaurs were first unearthed in the 19th century, they were reconstructed as lethargic beasts, a stigma associated with ectothermy. This perception prevailed for 150 years. Then John Ostrom rocked the foundations of dinosaur paleontology in the late 1960s. He uncovered evidence that dinosaurs lived dynamic lives, a trait associated with "endothermy" (i.e., warm-bloodedness). Significant scientific advancements were made by ensuing generations of paleontologists following in Ostrom's footsteps. But now there is reason to suspect that dinosaurs were incredible frauds. Dinosaurs Incognito proposes that dinosaurs were ectotherms and exposes how these clever beasts managed to pull off their endothermic charade by presenting them in intriguing ways that both challenges conventional doctrine and encourages alternate thought. The reader is also introduced to a special axiom regarding morphology, provocative new ideas concerning the nitty-gritty of dinosaur life, and some entertaining anecdotes for good measure which are sure to make Dinosaurs Incognito a memorable experience for the general reader and scientist alike.

Lilian Brown shares her early adventures with husband Barnum Brown (curator, American Museum of Natural History) on his paleontological expeditions to India and Burma. The focus here is not on Barnum's scientific discoveries, but on the curious cultures and people they encountered as they camped and traveled. From pets to parties, her descriptions of life on a long expedition (often waiting for Barnum to return from his lone wolf forays for fossil beds) shows a very different side than you'll find in an academic journal.